Electronic devices include traditional computing devices such as desktop computers, notebook computers, smartphones, wearable devices like a smartwatch, internet servers, and so forth. However, electronic devices also include other types of computing devices such as personal voice assistants, thermostats and other sensors or controllers, automotive electronics, robotics, devices embedded in other machines like refrigerators and industrial tools, Internet of Things (IoT) devices, and so forth. These various electronic devices provide services relating to productivity, remote communication, social interaction, security, safety, entertainment, transportation, and information dissemination. Thus, electronic devices play crucial roles in many aspects of modern society.
Many of the services provided by electronic devices in today's interconnected world depend at least partly on electronic communications. Electronic communications include, for example, those exchanged between or among different electronic devices using wireless or wired signals that are transmitted over one or more networks, such as the Internet or a cellular network. Electronic communications therefore include both wireless and wired transmissions and receptions. To make such electronic communications, an electronic device uses a transceiver, such as a wireless transceiver.
Electronic communications can therefore be realized by propagating signals between two wireless transceivers at two different electronic devices. For example, using a wireless transmitter, a smart phone can transmit a wireless signal to a base station over an air medium as part of an uplink communication to support mobile services. Using a wireless receiver, the smart phone can receive a wireless signal from the base station via the air medium as part of a downlink communication to enable mobile services. With a smart phone, mobile services can include phone and video calls, social media interactions, messaging, watching movies, sharing videos, performing searches, acquiring map information or navigational instructions, locating friends, transferring money, obtaining another service like a car ride, location-based services generally, and so forth.
To provide these types of services, electronic devices typically use a wireless transceiver to communicate wireless signals in accordance with some wireless standard. Examples of wireless standards include an IEEE 802.11 Wi-Fi standard and a Fourth Generation (4G) cellular standard, both of which are used today with smartphones and other connected devices. However, efforts to enable faster Wi-Fi networks and the creation of a Fifth Generation (5G) wireless standard are ongoing. Next-generation 5G wireless networks and new Wi-Fi networks, for example, are expected to offer significantly higher bandwidths, lower latencies, and access to additional electromagnetic spectrum. Taken together, this means that exciting new wireless services can be provided to users, such as driverless vehicles, augmented reality (AR) and other mixed reality (MR) imaging, on-the-go 4K video streaming, ubiquitous sensors to keep people safe and to use natural resources more efficiently, real-time language translations, and so forth.
To make these new, faster wireless technologies more widely available, many wireless devices besides smart phones will be deployed, which is sometimes called the “Internet of Things” (IoT). Compared to today's use of wireless devices, tens of billions, and eventually trillions, of more devices are expected to be connected to the internet with the arrival of the Internet of Things. These IoT devices may include small, inexpensive, and low-powered devices, like sensors and tracking tags. Further, to enable next-generation wireless technologies, 5G wireless devices and new Wi-Fi devices will be communicating with signals that use wider frequency ranges and that span bands located at higher frequencies of the electromagnetic spectrum as compared to those devices that operate in accordance with older wireless standards. For example, newer devices will be expected to operate at millimeter wave (mmW) frequencies (e.g., frequencies between at least 30 and 300 Gigahertz (GHz), but also including frequencies as low as 4-6 GHz).
To accommodate these commercial expectations and surmount the associated technical hurdles, the components that enable wireless communications under these constraints will be expected to operate efficiently at mmW frequencies. One component that facilitates electronic communication is the wireless interface device, which can include a wireless transceiver and a radio-frequency front-end (RFFE). Unfortunately, the wireless interface devices designed for electronic devices that operate in accordance with the Wi-Fi and 4G cellular standards of today are not adequate for the 5G-capable and faster-Wi-Fi devices of tomorrow, which devices will confront higher frequencies, more-stringent technical demands, and tighter fiscal constraints.
Consequently, to facilitate the adoption of 5G cellular and faster Wi-Fi technologies, as well as the widespread deployment of wireless interface devices that can provide new capabilities and services, existing wireless interface devices will be replaced with those having designs that can handle mmW frequencies. Electrical engineers and other designers of electronic devices are therefore striving to develop new wireless interface devices that will enable the promise of 5G and other higher-frequency technologies to become a reality.